The ever-changing nature of midwifery is well recognised. Over time, midwives have been commonly addressed as permanently being in search for a definition of their professional boundaries and autonomous scope of practice. In this search, midwives who opt-out from hospital-based care into home births report feeling a wider sense of coherence between their practice and their ideology. However, it is not clear if there are common triggers to this shift from mainstream midwifery at the hospital to home birth midwifery, and how this shift impacts and transforms midwifery practice. This chapter explores the ways of becoming a home birth midwife in Portugal, and how they reconfigure their profession through their practice, analysing the role of knowledge in the definition of midwives’ status as authorities in childbirth, and how this authority is managed when interacting with doulas. Home birth midwives’ epistemic syncretism—the fluid combination of different types of knowledge in their practice—and the very nature of midwifery, in constant reconfiguration, are not signs of a low degree of professionalisation, but key features contributing to the long-term sustainability of midwifery in respectful maternity care.

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• Health Sciences - Medical and Health Sciences
• Sociology - Social Sciences